Chapter 12
"On the Road Again"
The sidewalks were wet when I went out to the car. It was overcast and looked to stay that way. I unlocked the driver's door and threw my jacket over the passenger seat and the briefcase on the back floor.
Once inside, I sat with my head bowed against the steering wheel, just feeling washed out and weary with the whole business of the past few weeks and the mental and physical toll it was taking from all three of us.
The one thing House didn't try with me was the one thing that might have worked: all he had to say was that I was too tired to drive all the way to Philly. I'm glad he didn't notice, because I couldn't have argued that one … and I really did need to do it.
I finally got myself together enough to get the car started and let it run to warm up a few moments before pulling out. I might have put one of House's really awful rock CDs in the player, just to keep myself alert and on edge, but right then I don't think I could have managed to stomach one of those screechy things. I don't mind the music, really, but when those people who can't sing open their mouths and spew out all that garbage, I want to throw up. So … no thanks. Bonnie Raitt will sound much better.
I finally put the car in gear and rolled down Baker Street onto Hanover, waited for the light to change at Exchange Drive and Hammond, and then eased onto the main drag, headed east. I was on my way at last. My thoughts turned immediately back to House and his pleading expression. I missed him already, and my sympathies were with Lisa Cuddy, if she had to listen to him whine all afternoon. Mmmm …
Driving to Philadelphia is a lot different from driving to Lancaster. Some Pennsylvania highways are wall-to-wall potholes, and these certainly were. Weekend traffic was heavy and drivers were impatient, cutting in and out, giving no quarter to anyone, and I was constantly on guard for idiots who laid on their horns and jumped lanes in order to gain the smallest advantage.
It turned out that it had rained during the night in PA, and was still showering off and on. The pavement was slick, and in some places, muddy. I had to compensate for that as well. Angry drivers constantly threw muddy water up over the hood and splashed the windshield. I kept the wipers on "intermittent", not that it did much good, and my foot was constantly moving from gas petal to brake and back again. The Volvo is usually pretty good on gas, but I could almost see the needle inching slowly to the left.
My shoulders were beginning to hurt again, and the wrist, which I'd thought to rest and ease during the drive, began to ache with tension by the time I was twenty miles out. At thirty miles, a tension headache had added itself to the mix, and I began to wish I'd listened to House and not bothered with this trip. The seat belt was, of course, riding directly across the spot on my hip where House's cane had ricocheted off my bones in the middle of the night, and added to the general discomfort.
Suddenly I was thinking of myself as the biggest baby … the biggest grump on the planet. My inconsequential aches and pains were nothing next to the ongoing medical condition that had continually plagued my best friend for seven-going-on-eight years, and counting.
Was I feeling a pang of petty jealousy suddenly creeping over me where it had no business? Could I be experiencing something like regret for the role into which I had purposely thrust myself years before? Did I feel it weighing me down after all this time as caretaker-by-choice of this brilliant diagnostician for whom I held nothing but respect and a deep admiration?
I held the Volvo steady in the right-hand lane, my thoughts as intermittent as the wipers across the windshield, as indecisive as my foot gravitating between gas and brake. As unpredictable as the rain and the sun competing with one another for control of the day's weather …
What would be the next urgent medical crisis to knock Gregory House to his knees and add to his already overtaxed physical and mental burden? He was already aware that I stood beside him like a barroom bouncer, fending off the Goody Two-Shoes, the sympathizers, the curious: those who stared, those who pitied. Greg ignored them. I could not.
It wasn't Greg who chose the intervention of a psychologist. It was I! It was I who did not trust my own instincts to handle a difficult situation with knowledge or grace or intuition or respect or courage or love. It was I who was indecisive, who was so afraid of inflicting harm that I sometimes also refrained from offering good.
The physician's oath: "First, do no harm …"
I was so afraid of causing harm that I was running away from … running toward …
"What?"
I was at first unaware that I had spoken the word aloud, and suddenly I was aware of a deep, frightening need. A need that chewed at my stomach lining and my heartstrings!
I did not know what it was that I needed.
I just needed!
Oooo0oooO